


green thumb

by crimsvn



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Identity Porn, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), One Shot, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28702911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsvn/pseuds/crimsvn
Summary: George moves to Florida. In a strange twist of fate, he takes up gardening in order to somehow win the affections of one of his new neighbours.And in an even stranger twist of fate, that same neighbour would turn out to be someone he already knew.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 641
Collections: MCYT





	green thumb

George has been the imaginer of many bad ideas over the course of his lifetime, but this one had to take the cake. Actually, forget the cake—the _entire_ _fucking bakery._ And it wasn’t even that the idea was _bad_ as in it would possibly put George in danger or get him in trouble—it was just plain _bad._ As in, it should never have existed.

It had all started a few weeks after George had moved into his new home in Florida, a stark contrast from living in England. The weather was always warm and sunny, and on the occasion it did rain, it was warm and sticky, unlike the harsh, cold, _constant_ rain back home. Such a minor thing had made all the difference for George, so far.

That, and everything seemed an awful lot more spacious, open. Friendly, too. Everything about Florida George had taken a hasty liking to, even despite the copious amounts of slander he had heard concerning the state, especially leading up to the day he moved. Sapnap still made fun of him for the few weeks they had lived together, not fully understanding how _different_ everything was for George.

But despite all this lovely sunny weather, George still found himself cooped up in his room most of the time. Call it an occupational hazard.

He did open his curtains, however, which led him on a long, winding path of decisions that worked together to formulate this awful plan of his.

George’s bedroom, and subsequent streaming room, was located on the second floor of the house he and Sapnap rented, in the back, where it peered into the neighbours’ backyards. It sounded intrusive, and it had _felt_ intrusive at first, but the tall wooden fences that separated every property, and the angle that George’s window was at, made it difficult to see much.

That being said, George could still see _some_ things.

And presently, after drawing back the curtains, George’s view consisted of what was presumably his neighbour—a tall, gently tanned, _shirtless_ blond—mowing the lawn. His back glistened with sweat in the blistering heat and unforgiving brightness of the sun as he worked, occasionally dragging a hand through his hair to push it back and out of his face. His very handsome face, from what George could see.

George was glad the neighbour was so caught up in his chore that he wouldn’t have half the mind to glance up and see George watching him, entranced by the movement of his muscles as he directed the lawnmower back and forth across the yard in perfect parallel lines.

George doesn’t even realize he’s staring until Sapnap barges into his room.

“Hey, you ready to—George? What are you doing?”

George whirls around to see Sapnap standing in the doorway to his bedroom, eyebrows drawn together in confusion, the corners of his lips downturned in a frown. George blinks, loosening the tightened grip he had just noticed he kept on one of the curtains. His arm drops limply to his side, his brain scrambling to find any words to say.

“Nothing,” George says rather dumbly.

Sapnap’s frown deepens. “Why were you just looking out the window, you weirdo? Spying on the neighbours or something?”

George can feel his cheeks warm, and he imagines his face was blooming a deep, ashamed pink. “No,” he squeaks. George clears his throat as to regain some semblance of composure, rolling his shoulders back and standing up straighter. “I’m not.”

Sapnap snorts, folding his arms over his chest. His prior expression goes lax. “That’s kinda creepy, George.”

George takes a brief glance back out the window, seeing that their neighbour had disappeared from sight. It had gone quiet, as well, with the lawnmower now shut off. George tells himself that he’s _not disappointed_ as he looks back at Sapnap, who is raising his eyebrows almost accusingly.

“It’s not creepy,” George grumbles. “I was just opening my curtains.”

“Sure, tell that to your blush,” Sapnap retorts. “I was just gonna ask if you were ready to stream, but clearly you’re busy.”

“I’m not busy,” George says. “Anymore. Give me a minute and I’ll be ready.”

Sapnap makes a halfhearted noise of acknowledgement before he’s retreating to his own room whilst he waited for George to set up. George loiters at the window as Sapnap’s footsteps grow further and further away. The neighbour doesn’t show any signs of returning for the moment, so George begrudgingly seats himself down at his computer and boots it up, mind filled with nothing but images of the blond just across the way.

Sapnap ends up streaming for nearly three hours before calling it quits for the day. His and George’s mutual friend, Dream, joins the call at some point, and stays long beyond the end of the stream, talking with the both of them about everything and nothing. It was routine—George would expect nothing less.

George is a little bit thrown off guard when Dream asks about Florida, however. He’d been more than distracted since earlier that afternoon, his mind drifting back to sun-kissed hair and skin slick with perspiration from the day’s warmth. Maybe it was weird for George to fantasize about someone he’d only seen once, and had never actually spoken to.

Scratch _maybe_ —it definitely was.

_“It’s been great so far,”_ Sapnap tells Dream. _“George is already stalking the neighbours.”_

“Am not!” George protests, but Dream was already laughing loudly on his end of the call. George shifts in his seat uncomfortably, doing his best to ignore the tingling feeling returning to his cheeks. He would _not_ blush—he would _not._ George presses his hands against his face as if to hide it, even though no one could see him.

_“You’re such a liar,”_ Sapnap accuses.

George sighs, slumping over onto his desk, burying his head in his arms. “He was cute,” George admits defeatedly, and despite his words being severely muffled, both Sapnap and Dream had clearly heard, judging by their snickering.

_“Symptom of being painfully single?”_ Dream quips. George can practically hear his smile through the call. George groans in response.

Sapnap barks out a laugh. _“As if staring out the window is gonna help his ass. There’s a reason he’s single, Dream.”_

“Same as you two,” George snarks. “I’m just lucky I only have to live with one of you idiots. I don’t know if I could handle in-person bullying from you both at once. Dear _god.”_

The original plan, between the three of them, had been to move in together into a house in Orlando, however, Dream still hadn’t felt comfortable sharing his complete personal life with his friends, as well as his face. Being that none of them had done face reveals online, Sapnap and George hadn’t even known what one another had looked like prior to meeting up at the airport. Not that it mattered, nor did Sapnap and George mind Dream’s decision, but such was that.

_“You’d probably move back to London within a month, max,”_ Sapnap says. _“Not that I’d mind.”_

“Fuck off,” George snaps. “Dream, you would mind, right?”

“Well, _I mean,”_ Dream says. _“I don’t know if I’d say_ that…”

George leaves the call.

It was meant as a joke, but George actually finds himself debating rejoining or not. As much as he enjoyed speaking with his friends, George felt oddly drained.

So instead of returning to the voice channel, George sends a message with some half-assed excuse about going for a nap, to which he gets the response, _Don’t you sleep enough as is?,_ but George takes his leave nevertheless. He turns off his monitor, locks his door and lies down in bed—but not so true to his word, George doesn’t actually sleep.

Instead, he stares up at the ceiling in thought, though not about anything in particular. At one point, he’s counting the largest spots of the ugly popcorn ceiling that sat above him, his gaze gradually migrating towards the window.

George suddenly decides that it’s too hot in his room. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of his bed, getting up to open the window—and only for that reason.

Definitely not to see whether or not his neighbour had decided to reappear. Which he hadn’t.

It was only fair, though, as it wasn’t as if everyone spent their entire day outdoors. Hell, George had barely left the house since moving in as is. And maybe the blond wasn’t even George and Sapnap’s neighbour, he could’ve been a hired service or something of the like.

But George comes to doubt this theory when the next day, as he and Sapnap are returning to the house from their bi-weekly grocery trip, the same blond is passing by just across the street, out on a run. George’s eyes follow his movements as he traverses the road, not having considered that Sapnap would not only see George’s sad pining, but _the_ neighbour as well.

“I’ll give it to you, George. He _is_ pretty cute,” Sapnap comments. “If that’s who you were eyeing yesterday.”

“I was not _eyeing_ anybody,” George argues, though in all honesty, that was the furthest thing from the truth. “But yes, it was. You can laugh at me later, but right now I’d like to get the ice cream in the freezer so that it doesn’t melt, yeah? It’s like a thousand degrees.”

“Well, first of all, it’s about _eighty_ degrees,” Sapnap corrects. “And second of all, I’m very well capable of multitasking. Hand me that bag there.”

George does as instructed, though he also piles a second bag into Sapnap’s open hand to bring into the house as George balances three on his own. George ends up being the transporter of goods from car to house as Sapnap unpacks, but it’s no matter to him. And albeit Sapnap’s claim to “multitasking”, he leaves George alone until the car is locked and the front door is shut, and they’re revelling in the coolness of their air conditioning.

“You know I’m never gonna let you live this down unless you score a date with that guy, right?”

“Wow, Sapnap,” George deadpans. “As if it’s that easy.”

Sapnap shrugs, giving an air of nonchalance as he normally did. “It can be. You know which house it is. Introduce yourself or something. You’re a grown man, George.”

“Still,” George says. “That’s weird and completely unsolicited. I’m not doing that.”

“Then what _are_ you gonna do?” Sapnap asks, looking to George expectantly. “Endure me and Dream making fun of you? Take up gardening so you can watch him run and hope one day he says hi? C’mon, George, tell me what you’re thinking.”

George contemplates Sapnap’s suggestions for a moment, and seriously.

As it would turn out— _maybe_ George’s worst idea ever wouldn’t originally be of his own creation, but it would certainly be made an existing product of his own dedication.

“It wouldn’t hurt to get more sun,” George finally says, after a lengthy, drawn out silence. Sapnap’s expression quickly shifts to that of dumbfounded disappointment.

“That wasn’t a serious suggestion,” Sapnap remarks incredulously, as if that hadn’t been obvious to George already. George had just taken it as a _doable_ suggestion, in all honesty. “You can’t possibly be considering it. Right?”

There’s a much too long pause before George responds.

“You wouldn’t mind driving me to a garden supplies store, would you?”

The bad idea had only continued to grow worse from there, unsurprisingly. George supposes it was inevitable, from the moment it had been planted in his head to the second George was committed and researching how to start a garden on Google.

It was kind of pathetic, really. Sapnap had made sure to tell him as much.

Sapnap reluctantly agrees to not tell Dream about the gardening scheme, fortunately for George. Despite George’s friendship with Dream, having one person other than himself knowing about the plan was more than enough. One too many, in fact, but it was _technically_ Sapnap’s idea, so George felt obligated to let him help.

Before his designated ‘day one’ begins, George is already regretting going through with it. With everything. It was _such_ a dumb idea, but by a week in, he had figured out his neighbour’s schedule, though having yet to catch his attention. George hadn’t quite thought that far ahead.

But Sapnap _had,_ apparently.

Usually, Sapnap just stayed indoors whilst leaving George to fend for himself outside in the hot sun and humidity for anywhere between a half hour to an hour while he waited for their neighbour to run by, but after a week of _nothing,_ Sapnap had an idea for a sort of… _push._ Literally _._

One particular afternoon, Sapnap had taken to annoying George as he was filling a new planter with soil, which, originally, George had thought didn’t serve any purpose other than irritating him and curing Sapnap’s daily boredom, but how wrong he had been.

When their neighbour is about within earshot and eyesight of the house, Sapnap kicks the planter over, resulting in all of the dirt spilling out onto their driveway.

“Hey!” George exclaims. Sapnap does nothing but grin, jerking his chin in the direction of the other side of the street, where their neighbour, despite having been mid-run, had nearly come to a stop, having heard George’s exclamation. He wore a concerned, yet curious expression, but looks about ready to pick up where he had left off running.

George just smiles awkwardly, though he fears it may appear closer to a grimace, and offers a pitiful wave as if to signify for him to _keep moving, everything is alright here!_

Once their neighbour is out of sight, George turns to glare at Sapnap. “What the fuck was that for?”

“You should be thanking me,” Sapnap says. “Now he’s finally noticed you. You were making _zero_ progress, my friend.”

George rolls his eyes. “I was doing just fine.”

Sapnap gives him a look. “No, you weren’t. So you’re welcome.”

And before George can reel Sapnap into helping him clean up the mess, his friend is wandering back into the house. Normally, George would have forced him to help, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue. Sapnap was right, for once, about George’s current predicament. Not that George would ever give Sapnap the satisfaction of knowing George thought so.

Especially not when Sapnap’s screwing with George to get the neighbour’s attention had somehow gotten things to turn for the better.

Even despite the less-than-great first impression, George starts to notice that his neighbour would wave at him when running by, a friendly smile plastered on his face. George always makes sure to wave back, wearing his own quaint smile, and he calls it _progress._

He wishes it actually _was_ progress, however.

After about three weeks or so of regularly being outside, George dwindles on his routine, having run out of gardening ‘things’ to do, as he so fittingly labelled them. He had potted many plants—flowers, grasses, and plenty in between—as well as bought new planters to pot _more_ plants, but it was getting tiring. George never had a green thumb, nor had he ever intended to. He was a _streamer._ His time was meant to be spent _inside,_ not elbow deep in dirt.

George and Sapnap eventually tell Dream about the scheming, though they leave out the gardening aspect as to save George from excessive humiliation. The laughter at George’s expense stung all on its own, and as did Sapnap’s incessant teasing. George didn’t need that from Dream as well. At least, not right now.

George gets nicer words from Dream anyways, although only when Sapnap isn’t around.

_“Though I agree with Sapnap that you should actually go talk to your neighbour, instead of doing whatever it is you’re doing,”_ Dream tells him one afternoon over a call, _“I_ am _happy for you, George. You’re…_ sort of _putting yourself out there.”_

George scoffs. “Thanks so much for the encouragement. I’m sorry I can’t help my social ineptitude.”

_“You’re good at talking to me,”_ Dream says, his tone soft. He then adds, as an afterthought, _“Sapnap, too. You’re not_ that _inept.”_

“Wow, Dream, that makes me feel _so_ much better,” George drawls, throwing a hand over his heart and leaning away from his desk as if he were swooning—not that Dream could see. “You have _such_ a way with words.”

George can hear Dream sigh quietly, reserved almost, before it’s replaced with a sad sort of half-chuckle. _“See if I’m ever nice to you again, then. Not that you’re ever nice to_ me, _but hey.”_

“I’m plenty nice to you,” George counters. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

_“Keep telling yourself that,”_ Dream teases. He pauses, silent for a solid few seconds. _“Shit. I have to go.”_

“Go _where?”_ George asks, and it’s nearly (involuntarily, and embarrassingly) a whine. “What’s more interesting than me?”

_“On a run?”_ Dream answers. _“There’s a lot of things more interesting than you.”_

George opts to gloss over the second part of Dream’s reply, only this time, just for a lack of a good comeback. “Since when do you run?”

_“I don’t know? I do it every day to get out of the house, because contrary to popular belief, I actually do that,”_ Dream says. _“Unlike two people I know.”_

“Ouch,” George says. “Enjoy your run, or whatever. Weirdo.”

They both leave the call, George lingering if only for a moment or two longer after Dream. He checks the clock in the bottom corner of his screen and notices it was around the time he would usually head outside for some of his pathetic gardening, but George had decided earlier that he would take the day off, for once.

George didn’t think anything of it, until he fully registers the conversation he had just had with Dream. He checks the time again, and— _no, that had to be a coincidence. Right? What was the possibility of inadvertently becoming Dream’s neighbour and—_

George wasn’t quite sure how to feel, if it _was_ Dream. Sure, his friend was funny, smart, compassionate, and so many other wonderful things, but he’d also turned down moving in with his friends as to not share his face, and here George had been, very clearly checking him out. Going out of his way to get his attention, in fact, because he found him attractive. It felt wrong, in many ways, but George figures he would've had a similar revelation soon enough regardless. It had just been a matter of _when,_ not _if._

George abruptly sits up, debating whether or not he wanted to test his rapidly forming theory, as Dream—if it _was_ him—would be passing by their house rather soon. He contemplates telling Sapnap for a brief, fleeting moment, but then ultimately decides against it.

_Fuck it,_ George thinks. _I’m either going to embarrass myself now or embarrass myself later. What do I have to lose?_

George stands from his chair and marches on downstairs and outside, without even the slightest ounce of a plan in his head. The lack of hesitation scared _himself,_ especially with how his entire gardening schtick had been going for the past month. Even Sapnap appears mildly startled by George’s determinedness as he breezes by him, a man on a mission.

George waits at the end of the driveway, sitting on the curb as he awaited for the neighbour—or quite possibly Dream. The thought of his made George’s heart beat faster, feeling small and incredibly nervous all of the sudden. A small part of George began to hope it _wasn’t_ Dream, and it was possible, but awfully convenient, at least in George’s view.

Because, now that he _really_ thought about it, more puzzle pieces seemed to fall in place.

Not only was Dream consistently offline around the time George went out, as well as whenever George had spotted the neighbour doing yard work, mysteriously immediately available only minutes after the blond would disappear inside. It was such opportune timing, but George had never thought much of it. There hadn’t been reason for him to.

And he could _still_ be overreacting. It was just Dream’s specific admittance to heading out for a run _at that time, “every day,”_ that had made George suspicious.

George obsessively checks down both sides of the street in anticipation. He probably looked insane from any outsider’s perspective, but George couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He isn’t sure how much time has passed when George sees him, his suspected Dream. Everything seems to move in slow motion as George’s barely thought out idea is put into action, before the world comes to a halt and George finds out if everything was to go very, _very_ wrong in every sense of the word.

As the runner approaches, George cups his hands around his mouth and shouts out a diffident yet firm, _“Dream!”_

George begins panicking the moment the name leaves his tongue, entirely unsure of whether or not the blond had heard him, or if it simply wasn’t Dream.

But then the runner hesitates, and nearly trips as a cause of his surprise. He stops and pulls out an earbud, looking at George with nothing but pure confusion and mild alarm. If George had to describe his expression as accurately as possible, he could sum it up in three words— _what the fuck._

Which was exactly how George _also_ felt, though he didn’t wear it on his face, because _what the fuck,_ the neighbour had been Dream all along.

George gets up in a fashion the complete opposite of graceful, not really having had a second step to his plan. Dream watches as he does so, his body language _screaming_ uncertainty, and George could very well understand that.

‘ _Hi,’_ George mouthes, giving Dream a stiff wave before pointing to himself and exaggerating his enunciation of, ‘ _George.’_

Dream’s eyebrows furrow for a moment, before his eyes grow wide in both realization and disbelief. He doesn’t look before jogging across the street to meet George.

While George hadn’t been prepared in the first place for it to be Dream, George was _especially_ unprepared to see him up close and personal, his skin aglow from exercise in the intense mid-afternoon sun. He was _really_ tall, his hair looked so much softer up close, and George could now see that Dream had a generous amount of freckles dusting his nose and cheeks. George imagined Dream’s irises were something like an olive green, though they just looked a dull yellowish brown to him. George could verify at a much, _much_ later date.

But if George hadn’t a crush before, well. He certainly had one now.

“I never—I hadn’t realized,” Dream stammers. “Wait, were you—am _I…?”_

Unfortunately, George had an idea of what Dream was thinking, especially with the smile that was slowly blossoming on his face.

“The gardening every day, at the same time, was that—am _I_ the neighbour?” Dream finally asks, and never before in his life did George wish so desperately for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He missed living in ignorance already.

George stares at the ground, kicking at the pavement. “Maybe,” he mumbles. George couldn’t bare to see Dream’s reaction to his confession, he really couldn’t.

Dream doesn’t seem perturbed, however. “It’s cute that you’d do that for me, George,” he says. “But also you need to up your game.”

George frowns, now glaring up at Dream. “I was doing my best, but I guess it turns out I didn’t even need to do anything in the first place. So. There.”

“I mean, you still _do.”_

George pauses. “What?”

“You still have yet to woo me, George,” Dream clarifies. “You’re hot, I’ll give you that, but I’m not shallow like you.”

“I’m not _shallow,”_ George protests, before he really registers what Dream had said, and—“Wait.”

“Tell you what,” Dream starts, before George can get another word in, “let me finish my run, and maybe in about an hour or so swing by my house so that we can talk? In person? Y’know, about this whole thing?”

George doesn’t really stop to think before he’s nodding his agreement, still in shock that Dream had called him _hot,_ having not thought the feeling may have been mutual to begin with.

Dream’s eyes seem to sparkle in the light of the cloudless day. “Great. I’ll see you then,” he says, then delivers a soft peck to George’s cheek before he’s starting back into a jog, continuing on his run.

George’s hand lifts to the spot where Dream’s lips had been, standing frozen on the edge of the driveway.

While Dream’s looks had been a _little more_ than a bonus for him, George now understands what had been holding him back from saying hi from the start, other than his own awkward self—he had already been in love with someone else, their personality more specifically, and had been too afraid that this handsome stranger would never live up to them. It was what had subconsciously kept George from making any advances further than a wave hello.

It had never really occurred to George just how much he liked Dream as more than a friend, too oblivious about his own feelings, though he often was—the late night talks, just the two of them, and kind, sappy words exchanged not fully on purpose. No one, not even a cute neighbour, could match that.

It was a damn good thing they turned out to be the same person.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm hoping to write a multi-chapter for my next fic but for now i guess here's my first fic of 2021?? 
> 
> hope you enjoyed, follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/crimsvn2) for fic updates and general shitposting! :) <3


End file.
